Gash - A Young Man's Gash. 1972 Germany

Truly an odd one, and not what you would
expect from the Brain label (this early anyway). The album opens with
the pedestrian blues/gospel rock number 'Angel and Mother' which offers
little to recommend, perhaps recalling Dull Knife when playing in a
similar manner. 'Twenty One Days' is a bit better, still in the blues
rock camp, but the heavy Hammond organ goes a long way to begin gaining
acceptance. 'In the Sea' is actually pretty good, and foreshadows Gash's
more than capable progressive tendencies. It's biggest problem is it
just simply sits at the end of a not-so-great side of music. But for
Side 2, Gash threw out the rule book, and went for the gold medal, just
as many of their contemporaries were doing. The 3 part side-long
progressive suite is absolutely killer, similar to Nektar in
composition, but even more crazed (thinking Message "From Books and
Dreams" here). And from there it goes into
insane off-the-rails Great Freaky Underground territory, and it's at
that point you realize the album is simply great.Even though it
is inconsistent, and starts off rather badly, I'm bumping this up a point. One killer side deserves at a minimum to be called
"Excellent". I wonder if they have some other tracks like
Side 2 sitting in a vault somewhere that are similar? What a fantastic
archival release that would be!Personal collection
LP: 1972 Brain

As you can see, Gash is housed in an extraordinary gatefold cover. There are no legit reissues on CD or LP. This album is a charter member of my original CD Reissue Wish List going way back to the early 90s. As stated above, I hope there's archival material, as it could be quite special! We'll update this post as soon as a reissue arrives.